Chapter 15
When the sun came up outside the workshop, it brought light but not color to the day. The sky overhead was gray and harsh, the clouds slower than they had been the night before but closer, too.
“I’ll come back as quickly as I can,” Periwinkle said as she moved toward the door. “Cover for me to Floss if I’m late?”
Weaver nodded. “I will. Be careful,” he added, nodding toward a nearby window.
They hadn’t talked about their kiss that morning. But Periwinkle felt dizzy every time she looked at Weaver and remembered it.
As she left for the Pixie Dust Well, then flew on toward the Hall of Winter, she did her best not to let her eyes wander skyward.
Everything was fine at the well, at least, and Periwinkle’s dreams were going to keep it that way.
First, though, they had to figure out where the Sapphire Mine actually was.
When she and Weaver had come by a few days earlier, the hall had been humming with activity inside as fairies searched the shelves for Book Flood gifts.
Today, though, Juniper Glade itself was bustling with winter fairies, noisy with the barks and yelps of excited animals as the few animal-talents who’d stayed behind wrangled a group of three wolf pups and two white-furred foxes into sled harnesses.
The smallest fox rolled on its back in the snow, paws flailing, as a fairy tried to clip her to a sled, and two dark gray wolves kept throwing back their heads to give tiny howls to the sky.
A third little wolf pup dragged his harness behind him as he ran around after a holly leaf caught on the breeze.
Sled would’ve loved to watch them. Ignoring the twinge of loneliness she felt at the thought, Periwinkle gave a laugh and slipped through the hall’s front doors.
Despite the commotion out in the glade, the stacks inside the hall had returned to their usual quiet, only the books themselves snoring and mumbling and gossiping among themselves. It wasn’t hard for Periwinkle to go back unnoticed to the first set of shelves she and Weaver had searched.
“Hello, Maps and Atlases,” she said around a determined sigh. “Good to see you again.” Still, she hesitated before she began digging through the shelves.
Periwinkle couldn’t be sure whether the Sapphire Mine had been forgotten before the dream-talents, or after. Either way, she figured it had to be an ancient place, so this time Periwinkle concentrated on the oldest records she could find as she searched.
The work made her nervous, if she was honest. The bindings on some of the books were so worn she could hardly read their titles, and a few maps were so delicate she was afraid they would flake away into pieces if she handled them.
One ancient atlas had a woven bookmark that swatted her hand for even reaching to pick it up.
But once she’d picked out her materials, she gingerly scooped up the pile and made her way upstairs, to her favorite chair by the window where she and Weaver had been only a few days before.
Periwinkle felt hopeful as she settled onto its cozy snowdrop-petal cushions, telling herself she’d read carefully through the whole stack of material until she found something.
But Periwinkle read (and reread) the atlases and maps for over an hour before she had to admit they didn’t have the details she needed.
Maybe the books and papers were all from the wrong time period. Maybe the mapmakers hadn’t been focused on the mines. Whichever it was, this route was a dead end.
Periwinkle frowned, wondering what to try next.
Her first thought, unsurprisingly, was to check again in the Keeper’s private section.
There were hundreds of books there, all of them special, and plenty of them old enough to be relevant.
Still, Periwinkle rejected the idea almost immediately.
She wouldn’t have the Book Flood for an excuse a second time, and Dewey might have questions.
Dewey. If only he’d left clearer notes in the dream-magic book, or at least taken a stab at explaining them. Chase the dreams. Count the sheep. Periwinkle bit her lip, trying to remember what he’d written about the Sapphire Mine.
It had been something about a needle. Chase the needle—no. Find the needle. No, that wasn’t right, either. Anyway, it had been something to do with a needle. And then Periwinkle had an idea.
Compasses had needles. Compasses showed people where to go.
Were they looking for a compass?
Carefully, Periwinkle gathered up all her maps and atlases again and flittered downstairs to return them. And once she had, it was time to go on another treasure hunt.
There were hundreds of books on artifacts in the Hall of Winter, of course, and Periwinkle cast a longing glance at the door to the private section, knowing she would probably have found something useful about old magic compasses there, too.
But soon, she landed on a four-hundred-year-old encyclopedia that was as thick as her arms were long and heaved it back upstairs, sneezing as she sat down and opened the book to a cloud of dust.
“Bless you,” said a nearby book about fairy distemper.
“Thank you.” Periwinkle dabbed at her nose. Then she shifted in her seat and began to turn pages again, careful not to send any more dust flying. “The bookworms had better not have been at this one,” she added under her breath.
Not that she could blame any creature for loving books, and Dewey said the bookworms were helpful in the warm season libraries. But it was kind of inconvenient for books to leave the Hall of Winter in one piece and come back with tasty little chunks taken out of them.
To Periwinkle’s relief, though, the book seemed to be fine. Settling back in her chair again, she thumbed through pages as delicate as frost, in search of a magic compass.
As it turned out, there were many magic compasses mentioned in the encyclopedia.
There were compasses that could survive the coldest temperatures in the Winter Woods.
There were compasses that pointed south instead of north, or to your true love, your true friends, your true talent.
There were compasses that pointed out spoiled food, bookworms who’d been snacking (aha!), and snowballs coming toward you during a snowball fight.
But at the end of the list—at which point she went back to the top, and read the whole thing all over again—Periwinkle found she’d come up empty a second time. She’d found nothing about the compass they needed, if it existed. Frustrated, she slumped back in her chair and sighed.
The First Frost Ball was the next evening. She and Weaver only had one more night to find the magic spindle and spin Periwinkle’s dreams to protect the Pixie Dust Root.
Worse than that, Periwinkle still couldn’t help feeling there was a piece missing from the puzzle in front of them.
She understood the plan to protect the root with her dreams; the idea was grounded in legend—in Pixie Hollow’s own history.
But had the tree ever faced a storm like the one in her nightmares?
Had the dreams ever helped it recover, if it had?
Much as she wanted the spindle to be the end of their problems, she still felt like there was something they weren’t seeing.
Suddenly, Periwinkle sat upright. She opened the book again, if only to keep her hands from smacking her own forehead.
She’d searched the encyclopedia for a compass.
But she hadn’t bothered just searching for the spindle.
Holding her breath, Periwinkle began to turn the encyclopedia’s pages. Just one more time.
There weren’t as many spindles as there were compasses; she realized that right away.
Still, the list of them was long enough for her heart rate to climb pretty high as she read.
There was a cursed spindle that had pricked a princess’s finger and sent her into a deathlike sleep.
There was a spindle that could wind and unwind time, and another one that spun fate.
There was no mention of a spindle specifically made for dream magic.
But then she found mention of a sapphire spindle, deep in what the encyclopedia called the “s./g. mine,” at the end of the Chilly River.
Periwinkle was trembling all over by the time she finished reading the entry.
This was it. She was positive. The Keeper’s notes had had the mine somewhere in the northeast of the Winter Woods, and the Chilly River lay in the northeast. The spindle in the encyclopedia had to be the one they were looking for.
She stood up and set the book down on the side table, then moved to hover beside the window, shaking out her shaking hands.
They had a long flight ahead of them, and probably a long search once they got to the Chilly River. But she and Weaver could reach the Sapphire Mine before it got dark, if they didn’t leave too late. Periwinkle drew in a long, slow breath, letting the snow and the cool air calm her.
Down below in Juniper Glade, at the foot of the mountains, the sled races had begun.
All six of the fox and wolf pups had been hitched up, pulling the bravest fairies as far as they dared to go, which wasn’t far.
Lord Milori stood on the sidelines with the other fairies clapping and cheering for the animals and the racers, looking more relaxed than Periwinkle usually saw him.
She was laughing at the fox pup trying to flop on its back again when she heard voices behind her.
Periwinkle didn’t expect to get in trouble for being late to Floss’s workshop that morning. But she still wasn’t where she was supposed to be, and questions about why could get inconvenient quickly. Immediately, she dropped out of sight, crouching behind her chair.
“He’s completely forgotten his responsibilities,” someone hissed. Whoever it was seemed to be moving toward the books on healing, near where the book on fairy distemper had blessed her sneeze.
“Well, of course he hasn’t.” That was Dewey. Periwinkle ducked lower behind the chair. “Just because you don’t see everything that’s going on doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”
“He told me he’d coordinate the retrieval of flu supplies early this season,” said the first voice. Fairy flu—of course. It was Dougal.
“And, well, Queen Clarion said they’d be ready in about a week. She’s usually right about these things, you know.” Dewey’s words and voice were soothing. But Dougal wouldn’t be so easily soothed.
Periwinkle couldn’t help thinking she didn’t blame him.
Lord Milori was hiding the truth about the danger facing Pixie Hollow. Was it possible he was convinced he could control a situation with the fairy flu, as well? Could Lord Milori really believe he knew better about medicine than a healing-talent?
“There’s a storm coming, and it’s going to be a bitter one,” Dougal finally said. Periwinkle felt her stomach drop. “I only hope Lord Milori isn’t left with regrets once it’s come and gone.”
“I understand,” Dewey said.
“No.” Dougal’s voice sounded almost broken. “No, I don’t think you do.”
He didn’t speak again; the only sound in the hall was a flutter of wings. Still hidden behind her chair, Periwinkle kept still and counted to one hundred, listening to the puppy races out in the glade.
When she finally stood, there was Dewey, sitting in her chair like he’d been waiting for her.
“So.” He caught up his cane, one eyebrow quirking. “How much of that did you hear?”
Periwinkle bit her lip. “However much you…wanted me to hear?”
She cast a desperate glance at the encyclopedia of artifacts on the table beside him, hoping its presence would escape him entirely. Dewey scratched at his head and sighed.
“Well, you don’t need to worry. Lord Milori has things under control,” he said. “This is very personal for Dougal.”
“I know. And I feel terrible for him,” she said. “But why is he so angry at Lord Milori? What happened to Selene was awful, but it was an accident.”
“Well, yes,” the Keeper said. “But it was Lord Milori who sent Selene on the run for supplies so late in the flu season.”
Periwinkle frowned. “I see.”
“And, well. There are dozens of little caves and hideaways all over Snow Globe Mountain, and Dougal wanted to search all of them. But, you know, that would take quite a long time,” Dewey said, bobbing apologetically.
“The fast-flying fairies and the scouts looked hard for Selene. But after they’d delayed the change of the season by a week, they couldn’t wait anymore.
Lord Milori called off the search. And Dougal holds that against him. ”
Oh. “That must have been awful. For both of them,” Periwinkle said quietly.
“Anyway. That’s what that’s all about,” the Keeper said. “But that’s all private, so please keep what I told you to yourself,” he added hurriedly.
Periwinkle was just as quick to reassure him. “Of course I won’t talk about it.” She paused. “Is there anything we can do to help Dougal? Lord Milori—”
“Isn’t all-powerful,” the Keeper said simply. “He does his best. But he can’t fix everything in our world. No one could do that, you know.”
Periwinkle wanted to believe that Lord Milori was doing his best. No, she was sure he was.
What she didn’t know was why he chose to carry the weight of so many secrets when he could share the burden instead.
“Anyway,” Dewey finished. “There’s no magic that can heal a broken heart.” He stood beside the chair for a moment then, looking thoughtfully at Periwinkle.
Some of the winter fairies thought Dewey was kind of silly.
A nice old sparrow man who held an honorary position at the Hall of Winter.
And sometimes he did act kind of silly. But it was times like this, when the Keeper would look at Periwinkle with eyes as bright and clear as winter stars, that she remembered all over again why he was the Keeper of All Fairy Knowledge.
Periwinkle tried very, very hard not to look at the artifact encyclopedia.
“I understand,” she said, giving what she hoped was a thoughtful nod. Then she turned back down the hall, heart thundering as she tried to go casually on her way.
“Oh, Periwinkle?”
She turned. Her stomach dropped when she saw Dewey eyeing the encyclopedia, looking almost reproachful.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything. But the Keeper spoke first. “You forgot to return your book,” he said, raising his eyebrows pointedly.
Periwinkle gulped. “Oh,” she said, sounding breathless. “That’s not mine. You know I always put my things back.”
“Ah.” The Keeper frowned. “Well, good for you. Bad manners not to. I’ll have to put up a notice or something. Would you take this back downstairs?”
“Of course,” Periwinkle said. She hoisted the book off the table and headed back down the hall, pulse skittering.
She knew she needed to hurry back to Weaver at the workshop. But first, she needed a moment to catch her breath.
And then she needed to go find a book on the Pixie Dust Tree.